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HMRC Denies National Insurance Problem
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has hit back at suggestions that more than £1.3 billion in national insurance contributions (NICs) has been lost.
HMRC spoke out after Ian Liddell-Grainger, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Taxation Group, said that a kitty of unaccredited contributions for more than nine million people had built up over the past five years.
But the BBC reported that HMRC had denied that there was a problem, quoting a spokesman as saying: "No-one should have a reduced pension. We write to people where we see there is a gap in their contributions and if they contact us to report a gap we deal with the situation immediately.”
Figures, obtained by Mr Liddell-Grainger showed that between 2004 and 2009, around 9.3 million national insurance payments had been collected but were not matched to worker records.
HMRC receives around 48 million P14 forms each year from employers, which contain the details of the tax and national insurance paid by their employees, which it matches to individual national insurance records.
Where records cannot be matched – for example, because of an incorrect national insurance number – HMRC staff work to resolve the problem, with the contributions kept in a separate account in the meantime.
Employees can check their annual P60 to ensure that their national insurance number is correct, which means that they will be credited with the appropriate contributions.
